Note to XBMC end-users! Please understand that this Linux port project is not yet mature enough for you as an end-user to play with, no media can even be played back yet. We can not yet give you an ETA as to when it will be useful for end-users. Respect that we can not accept any bug-reports or feature/function-requests for this Linux port yet. If you as end-users have any questions or need to get something of your chest about this then please direct that towards the existing XBMC Linux port end-user discussion topic-thread in our community-forum

The difference this time is that we are not asking for new features/functions, what we are asking is for the existing code to be ported so it will compile and run under a Linux operating-system (with the same features/functions that are already available on the Xbox version of XBMC). The main reasons for porting XBMC to Linux are non-technical, (so it is not that the Xbox hardware is too slow or to old for the XBMC GUI or its existing features/functions), the real reasons are that we want XBMC to get a larger end-user and developer-base, because the more people who use XBMC and help maintain the code (and skins) the longer the project will grow and stay alive. The main reason from an end-user point of view is that the Xbox can not playback native high-definition video (at 720p and 1080i/1080p), especially not if the video is encoded with a H.264 or VC-1 codec. Nevertheless, note that we will still keep the old Xbox as the reference platform for standard-definition resolution video for some time (possibly a few more years), which means that the same GUI (and skins) that runs smooth under Linux on a relatively new computer must also run just as smooth on the old Xbox hardware (or a old computer that closely matches the Xbox hardware, at 733Mhz Intel Pentium III CPU and only 64MB shared memory with supported 3D accelerator).

2.1 Where do I start (Linux)?

The recommended Linux development platform is currently Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn). There is a Kdevelop project file available in our SVN (Subversion revision control system). After you've done a SVN checkout, follow the install guide in the SVN (README.linux) to setup the required packages and so on. Team-XBMC developers think that the best thing to start with is just to take a look through the source code and try to understand how it all fits together. Test things out, find what works and what does not, then try and track down why.

Alternatively, you can download a finished VMware Virtual Machine (VM) and run that in the free VMware Player (or use in VMware Workstation, or VMware Server). The VM available for download below is based on Ubuntu 7.0.4 Desktop, and all the pre-requisite software is installed (including KDevelop). Performance is not great using this, as there is no 3D hardware acceleration support under a virtual machine, however it should work good enough to get a lot of development tasks done without you having to bother with install of Ubuntu yourself. Nice is also that you can install/run VMware Player 2.0 and later under Linux as well as Microsoft Windows (including Windows Vista), 32-bit and 64-bit operating-system. The free VMware Player 2.0 and later also enables you to share data seamlessly between the virtual machine and host computer, and also allows you to directly access USB 2.0 devices from within the virtual machine, (experimental support for 2-way Virtual SMP to assign more than a single CPU to a virtual machine is also available for testing purposes).

Other stuff . Various other handy things that may or may not be useful

4 Technical summary of XBMC

4.1 The basics

The XBMC code structure uses a fairly modular design (with libraries and DLLs), and we think that there are enough modules/libraries to keep a wide skill-level range of developers busy for a while in the porting of them all. So please, take a look at the source code, then with the help of our To-Do list (see further down in this article) assess where the porting stage is today and think about where and how you can try to help out. Note that we are not planning on completely abandoning the Xbox hardware any time soon - XBMC will be a cross-platform software application, using the same code on multiple hardware platforms, (the 'old' Xbox still have a good amount of years to live we hope).

5.2 What has already been done

OpenGL/SDL - using the GPU, working but relies on an accelerated OpenGL version

SDL using 2D blitting, working but relies on computer CPU, not recommended (XBMC requires 24bpp to run, so if your graphic card doesn't have 3D accel for 24bpp -as i810 ones- then you have to compile using the option 'make sdl_2d')

Picture viewing working (including slideshow and it's effects)

SMB network shares

PAPlayer and its major audio decoder DLL codecs. Some codecs have still not been ported. See To-Do list below.

6.2 Major To-Do tasks with medium priority

[MAJOR - MEDIUM PRIORITY] Development of a platform-independent wrapper interface to SDL / DirectX / OpenGL / graphic backend interfaces, particularly with respect to how this interface should be exported to visualisations (.vis) and screensavers (.xscr), etc.

End-users will be running XBMC and the operating-system on Solid-State memory as a Live CD (LiveDistro) of a USB-key

Fast load and boot times for end-user perception (other thing can still run/start in the background without the user knowledge)

15-seconds or less from when the end user press the power-button on the computer till he/she can browse the GUI --pike 06:00, 14 June 2007 (CEST)unrealistic goal for Linux, isn't it?

7.2 User-friendliness is next to godlyness

One of Team-XBMC major ongoing goal have always been to make XBMC and its user interface even more intuitive and user-friendly for its end-users, based on the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) philosophy. We think that usability is very important for media players like XBMC. Many user interface deciscions are being made by developers who often have little experience in user interface design, in order to improve this, we try to listen to XBMC's end-users for how XBMC is actually being used and how we can improve the user experience. We also aim to do regular overhauls, improving existing features/functions, and scrapping outdated code and features/functions (as "to much stuff" can also be a bad thing).

7.2.1 XBMC as a whole must...

Be easy to install, set up, and maintain, (so that the end-users do not get fed up with it and quit).

Have an user interface simple and intuitive enough so that less geek-savvy people are not intimidated by it.

Be able to play audio and video files that have been compressed using divx, xvid, etc. directly out-of-the-box

Be able to and organize audio and video files in an easy and user-friendly way.

Use standards and be consistant, (the music section can for example not use completely different controls from the video section)

Perform actions in the GUI with as few 'clicks' as possible

Require little to none non-GUI configuration (and all such non-GUI config should be via AdvancedSettings.xml)

There is still a little work to be done here, for example RSS-feeds settings need to moved to the GUI

Look nice.

8 Mentors

Mentors are developers from Team-XBMC and members of The XBMC Project that have volunteered to assist and mentor non-official XBMC developers in any non-trivial way they can, helping you by checking, commenting and committing your code patches to our SVN source code tree. These mentors have chosen an area they prefer to specialize in, usually this is an area in which they feel they have most interest, knowledge, and expertise in. Initial patches are welcome, and can and will be merged by the team. If you wish to join the team in an official capacity, please let us know.

8.1 Linux port mentors and developers

If you are a C/C++ porting expert, specialist or guru and like to volunteer as a 'third-party' mentor and/or developer then please let us know.